Cumberland Adopts Official Community Plan

Posted on August 13, 2014

Cumberland – At their meeting of Monday August 11, Council of the Village of Cumberland adopted Official Community Plan (OCP) Bylaw No. 990, 2014. Adoption of this bylaw concludes a process that started in late 2012 to reorganize and revise the 2004 Village OCP while staying true to the community’s vision that was originally outlined. A common theme throughout the 2014 OCP is “Plan Cumberland…Together”.

Summary of highlighted changes to the 2014 Official Community Plan:

Updated and revised vision statement;

Updated and more complete statistics and demographic information on the Village;

Stronger governance language;

Regional Context Statement: outlines alignment of the OCP with the Regional Growth Strategy;

New Development Permits including wildfire urban interface areas, groundwater protection and farmland protection;

Updated development permit guidelines including energy conservation and green house gas sections;

Updated maps to reflect the future land uses including residential infill, intensive residential and interchange lands;

Focus on directing growth to core area already serviced with infrastructure;

Stronger environmental protection development permit requiring consideration of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as connectivity between the ecosystems;

New section on “Community Wellbeing and Active Transportation”;

New Heritage Conservation Area in the downtown core, requiring a permitting process to protect and enhance heritage characteristics of the downtown.

“We should all be proud of the hard work that went into creating our Official Community Plan” said Mayor Leslie Baird. “Many hours were spent by Council, staff and most importantly, all the citizens of Cumberland who took part in the OCP process by filling in surveys, posting sticky notes, attending meetings and having their voices heard.”

The Village of Cumberland would also like to recognize the team of consultants at Stantec, in Victoria, that was led by Mark Crisp. With the support of Stantec, their patience and attention to detail, Cumberland now has an OCP we can all be proud of – one that envisions a healthy, viable and sustainable community. It is time now for us to make it happen!